%0 Journal Article
%T Decoding the Discipline of Music History for Our Students
%A J. Peter Burkholder
%J Journal of Music History Pedagogy
%D 2011
%I Pedagogy Study Group of the American Musicological Society
%X Each discipline has a different set of paradigms and expectations, and it can be difficult for students to understand a new discipline and grasp what we are after in our courses. David Pace and Joan Middendorf have developed the model of ˇ°Decoding the Disciplinesˇ±: making explicit the modes of thought we use, and giving students practice in using them, so that they learn how to participate in a discipline by doing it. This paper applies the model to teaching music history. A practical application of the model presents the teacher with a series of steps: identifying a task that is difficult for students to perform but important for their success in the course and in the discipline; describing the operations an expert follows in performing the task; modeling those operations explicitly for the students; giving the students practice in following those steps to perform the task and feedback on their achievements; motivating the students to stay with the process; and assessing their mastery of the task. The paper illustrates the approach using as examples two related tasks that face students in music history courses: figuring out what are the significant features of a musical style or genre that distinguishes it from others, and developing a strategy for identifying unknown works by genre, composer, date, or style.
%K Pedagogy
%K disciplinary thinking
%K style
%K genre
%K identification
%U http://www.ams-net.org/ojs/index.php/jmhp/article/view/22/46